Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner

I AM a New England liberal, born and bred. I have lived most of my life in the Northeast — Boston, New York and Philadelphia — and my politics are devoutly Democratic. In three decades, I have voted for a Republican exactly once, holding my nose, in a mayoral election in which the Democratic candidate seemed mentally unbalanced.

Ditto. I’m armed liberal and lived in Houston at one point in my career. I don’t fear firearms, but I fear the gun nut fetistishs out there who worship firearms. Most of my Texas friends were moderate conservatives, gun owners, and were quite civil about both. If anything, I was more right-of-center then them because I was the only one with a CHL. Like many demographics in the nation, I think the “2%-er rule” probably applies for gun owners as well where 98% are actually pretty good folk while 2% are gun nut extremists/NRA worshipers.

The brush may be too broad at times. But I don’t think pro-gun control advocates see you as some kind of intolerable threat. Rather, the ire is directed at NRA absolutists who, for decades, have reflexively opposed any restrictions whatsoever as tyrannical infringement on 2nd Amendment rights.

Very few people have a problem with sane gun owners. It’s these maniacs building arsenals because they have paranoid delusions about the government, and idiots that let guns fall into the hands of troubled teens that are a problem.